German spy agency “believed that Covid probably started in the laboratory”

Germany's foreign intelligence agency believes that there was an opportunity of 80 to 90% that Coronavirus accidentally held from a Chinese laboratory, German media say.

Two German newspapers say that details about a assessment carried out by the espionage agency BND discovered in 2020, but have never been published.

The intelligence agency had signs that the Wuhan institute of Virology had carried out experiments in which viruses are modified in such a way that they can be transferred to humans more for research.

China repeated his rejection and said that the matter was “determined by scientists” -and pointed out to an investigation by the World Health Organization, in which it was found that the laboratory -leak theory was “extremely unlikely”.

There is no consensus on the cause of the Covid pandemic.

The hypothesis of the laboratory leaks Was hotly contested by scientistsIncluding many who say there are no final evidence to secure it.

But the once controversial theory has gained ground among a few secret services – and the BND is the latest that maintains the theory. In January, The US CIA said The Coronavirus was “rather likely” from a laboratory than to have come from animals.

After Time die And Sueddeutscher ZeitungThe BND met in Berlin in 2020 to examine the origin of Coronavirus in an operation called Project Saaremaa.

It rated laboratory theory as “probably”, although it had no final evidence.

The BND also found evidence that several violations of safety regulations had occurred in the laboratory.

The assessment was commissioned by Angela Merkel, Germany's Chancellor, but has never been publicly known.

According to the papers, the results were shared with the CIA last autumn.

In January of this year, the CIA said that a “research -related origin” of pandemic was more based on a natural origin “based on the available reporting” – although it warned that it had “low trust” in this provision.

Both the BND and the outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected a comment.

China's spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, said in answer: “We believe that the persecution of the origin of Covid-19 is a scientific topic that should be determined by scientists with a scientific approach.

“The conclusion that a laboratory leak is extremely unlikely was achieved by the China-WHO-community team after visits to relevant laboratories in Wuhan and incoming discussions with researchers on site.

“This relevant scientific conclusion was widely recognized by the international community and the scientific community.

“China decides every form of political manipulation in the question of Covid 19.

During the WHO examination in early 2021, a team of scientists flew to Wuhan to deal with the source of pandemic.

After 12 days there, which included a visit to the laboratory, the team concluded that the laboratory leak theory was “extremely unlikely”.

But many have questioned their results since then, with a prominent group of scientists criticized the report because they did not accept the laboratory lauga theory seriously enough, and was rejected on a few pages of a multi-sided report.

Followers of the natural hypothesis of origin, which was secured in the WHO reporting, say that Covid -19 was created in bats and then jumped to humans, most likely through another animal or “mediation”.

This hypothesis was widely accepted at the beginning of the pandemic, but over time, scientists have neither found a virus in bats nor in another animal that corresponds to the genetic composition of Covid-19, which caused some to doubt the theory.